Colin Fox (born 17 June 1959) is a Scottish socialist politician and left-wing activist, serving as national co-spokesperson of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) since 2005. He was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothians region from 2003 to 2007.

Described in The Herald as "one of Scotland's most prominent socialists", he is a founding member of the SSP and Scotland's longest-serving party leader or spokesperson, having been originally elected as the SSP's convener in February 2005. He was a member of the Yes Scotland Advisory Board.

Personal life

Fox was born in Motherwell. Both of his grandfathers were steelworkers, his mother was a nurse and his father an insurance salesman with the Co-operative Insurance Society. He attended Our Lady's High School before studying Mathematics at Strathclyde University and Accountancy at Bell's College, Hamilton (now part of the University of the West of Scotland). He graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Social Sciences from the Open University in 2013.

Colin currently lives in Edinburgh, with his partner and children.

Political career

Fox joined Scottish Labour in Motherwell and Wishaw as a teenager and established Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS) branches throughout Lanarkshire.

He has described Tony Benn as "one of my heroes", and says that it was after attending a talk given by Benn at the University of Glasgow, when Benn was running for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party, that he was inspired to get involved in politics full-time. As a prominent LPYS activist, he attracted the attention of the Militant tendency, and joined in 1981. He was elected as their Lanarkshire organiser in 1983 and has been heavily involved in socialist politics ever since.

He was active in the 1984–1985 miners's strike in Ayrshire and at the Ravenscraig picket line. The 103-day Caterpillar occupation of 1987–88 saw him involved in the key industrial battle of the time. He held a variety of posts in its industrial department, finance department, and as circulation manager of the Militant newspaper. Here, he was heavily involved in the leadership of the anti-poll tax struggle which brought down Margaret Thatcher.

In 1995, he moved to Edinburgh to take up the role of Scottish Militant Labour's East of Scotland organiser. This was the time when Militant was discarding its entryist tactics and turning towards open mass work. As a member of SML's executive committee, he was heavily involved in the discussions with some smaller groups on the left that led to the formation of the Scottish Socialist Alliance (SSA) in 1995.

The SSA aimed to build a left-wing alternative to New Labour and the SNP. It was built around the slogan "for an independent socialist Scotland". Fox was the SSA's East of Scotland organiser, a role he continued to play when the Alliance morphed into the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in 1998.

An MSP in Holyrood

He led the Scottish Socialist Party in the Lothians into the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999. This was the election where Tommy Sheridan, then an SML councillor, was elected as the SSP MSP for Glasgow region. Over the course of the next four years, Colin helped build the SSP as it trebled in size.

The party in parliament succeeded in passing legislation to abolish poindings and warrant sales in 2002. Using Sheridan's popularity, the SSP made several interventions including supporting the Fire Brigades Union dispute of 2002. But above all, it was the role the party played in the huge movement against the Iraq War that cemented the SSP's place in Scottish politics. Against pundits' predictions, the SSP won six seats at Holyrood in 2003, including Fox in the Lothians region. Winning by just 68 votes out of 300,000, Fox was famously captured on TV hurtling across the floor of Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh when his result was finally declared.

Like his SSP colleagues, Fox refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen and was ejected from the swearing-in ceremony for singing Robert Burns' anthem Is There for Honest Poverty (or A Man's a Man for A' That) in protest.

On one occasion, Sheridan asked Fox to lie on his behalf by writing to his solicitor saying minutes of a party meeting where Sheridan admitted going to a swingers' club were false. Fox refused and told Sheridan his strategy was a "train wreck". Colin Fox later summarised Sheridan's conduct by saying he had "done more damage to the socialist cause than any good he ever did it".

Fox was subsequently elected SSP national convener in Sheridan's place, defeating Alan McCombes by 252 votes to 154, but the damage done to the party by the Glasgow MSP was substantial.

In response to Tony Blair's plans to bring in variable top-up fees at English universities, Fox commented that previous student politicians, such as Jack Straw and Charles Clarke, "were only able to be active in student politics because they didn't have £10,000 of debt hanging round their neck and they didn't have to rush off to work in McDonald's". He added: "Now they are kicking the ladder away from the people below them."

Exit from parliament

Fox lost his seat in the Scottish Parliament at the 2007 election, but continued to lead the party, campaigning on issues including Scottish independence, fuel poverty, bankers' bonuses, the occupation of Afghanistan, climate change, equal marriage, AIDS, and education cuts. He had previously visited a nuclear power station on the grounds that "I am a convinced opponent of nuclear power but an opponent who wants to conduct the debate about new nuclear capacity and our energy needs on the basis of facts. My visit to Torness is at my own request." In the same year he championed the cause of affordable access to housing with his support of Midlothian Council's investment in providing housing.

In 2008, he wrote to the First Minister Alex Salmond seeking an assurance that any future meetings with members of the Northern Ireland Assembly would raise the issue of attitudes towards LGBT rights by its ministers. More recently he has also been involved in opposing community education cuts, and has marched against cuts to public services. John McAllion, John Finnie MSP, Jean Urquhart MSP, and Patrick Harvie MSP of the Scottish Greens. He wrote the SSP's pamphlets The Case for an Independent Socialist Scotland and For a Modern Democratic Republic.

Fox addressed independence rallies in Edinburgh in 2012 and 2013, and spoke at the Oxford Union in May 2014 debating the motion: "This House believes Scotland should be an independent country". His opponents in the debate included Lord Jim Wallace and the Labour MP for Stirling, Anne McGuire.

In June 2014, Fox wrote in the Scotsman: "No country in the world is more engaged in the democratic debate over self-determination than Scotland today. September’s referendum has energised people to a remarkable extent with debates on the 'democratic deficit' at the heart of Scottish politics now taking place in households, schools, workplaces, village halls and urban community centres from one end of the country to the other."

After the referendum

300px|thumb|Fox (right) at a rally in October 2022

When the make-up of the Smith Commission was announced after the rejection of independence, Colin Fox protested the decision to "uniquely exclude" the SSP from proceedings. He wrote to the Smith Commission: "The argument some use to justify our exclusion on the grounds that we currently have no 'parliamentary representation' fails to appreciate that the referendum was not a parliamentary process but an unprecedented public debate that resulted in an extraordinary level of engagement from all sections of society. To exclude the SSP is to exclude an important constituency of opinion in Scottish society."

In January 2015, Fox travelled to Athens as a guest of Syriza before its victory in the January 2015 Greek legislative election. He met with Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias Turrión, and said the election result was "something for socialists in Scotland to ponder deeply".

2022 City of Edinburgh Council election

Fox stood as a candidate for the Scottish Socialist Party in the Liberton/Gilmerton ward in the 2022 City of Edinburgh Council election.

Other activities

Fox is the founder and current director of the Edinburgh People's Festival.

In October 2008, Fox stood for Rector of the University of St Andrews. He came second, losing to Kevin Dunion. He was asked to run for the position by members of St Andrews-based student groups such as Stop The War, due to his previous experience with the pro-peace and social justice movements. After losing the rectorial election in 2008, he maintained his links with the University and visited a student sit-in protest in 2009. He was invited to stand for election as rector again in 2011.

References

  • Scottish Socialist Party
  • Interview with Colin Fox in Frontline magazine